nuit blanche, cold weather, and long walks home.

last night i discovered that my sweet sweet internet which has really kept me going for days now has disappeared. it tells me i have a very good connection. VERY GOOD. but it won't do anything. the status bar at the bottom doesn't get progressively greener. alas.

last night was nuit blanche. as carrie so correctly put it, paris is obsessed with celebrating itself. god it's so self-absorbed and arrogant. whether it's the fête de la musique, where there are concerts all over paris one day over the summer, to the journées du patrimoine, when all national monuments/museums are free at night, to the nuit blanche, where a lot of historic buildings have crazy expeditions inside, there's all these outdoor parties and instillations, and everyone is very very drunk. nuit blanche translates literally into white night but actually means a night where you don't go to sleep.

we got off at hôtel de ville and it was packed. the metro was free and very much booming with people. bottles of wine were being held carelessly (apparently it's not illegal here to have an open container of alcohol), pda's abounded, and many a shady man thought it find to personally accost the females who were not accompanied by men. one guy grabbed onto carrie while asking for directions and it took my pulling her and her screaming at him (and coming very close to punching him) to get him away. the night was pretty interesting--it reminded me a lot of new years. first, it was packed like it was new years and there was no way to get anywhere. not a cab in sight and the metro closed except for one line which ran across the seine on the right bank (ie: useless for me). second, it had the same sort of hype surrounding it, where it's supposed to be amazing and everyone gets wasted and stays up all night. but in the end, you're tired relatively early, your buzz has worn off, and while the night hasn't quite been a bust, it's not as good as you thought it should/could be. but you're fine with it. because you've come to expect it.

anyway, we ended up walking back from the marais and getting home around 3. exhausted, i crawled into bed and watched the most recent two episodes of the oc which erica's friend jared had so wonderfully had on his computer. yay.

yesterday morning i went to shul--about a 35 minute walk, and met a nice british girl which is good news for me. i walked back through les jardins du luxembourg and finally see why people--including my dad--love it so much. it's big and beautiful and filled with every kind of parisian there is. the little kids play and scream as their parents watch, the old man sits reading a ratty newspaper, the young hipster plays with his small powerbook and the couples cuddle.

oh, the couples. at this point there should be a law banning the hand-holding, eye-gazing, shoulder-massaging couples that populate this all too romantic city. bitter? me? never.